The History of Christianity in Britain and Ireland: From the first century to the twenty-first, by Gerald Bray

IVP, 2021, 693pp

This looked like the book for me. The history of Christianity in these islands is a fascinating story. I've enjoyed some of the author's earlier writings Creeds, Counsels and Christ (Mentor) and The Doctrine of God (IVP). But I didn't get on with this title as well as anticipated. Bray writes very much from an Anglican perspective. His focus tends to revolve around the institutional church. Tables are given on how dioceses in England and Ireland developed over the centuries. Controversies in relation to the Established Church are discussed in some detail. The account can sometimes be a little dry and lacking in human interest, which is a pity as the Christianity in Britain and Ireland has produced some great characters. 

Plus, while billed as covering Britain and Ireland, England pretty much dominates, with occasional side glances at Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Even periods when a lot was going on in Wales like the Evangelical Revival in the 18th century and the other revivals that followed, little coverage is given here. The 20th century Welsh preacher D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones gets a mention, though. He is made to sound even more Welshy by the author referring to him as Dafydd rather than David Martyn. Inaccurately he is said to have called for Evangelicals to leave their denominations and join the FIEC (Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches), where in reality it was the BEC (British Evangelical Council). 

Not much is said about the impact of British Christianity on world mission. William Carey's pioneer work in India isn't mentioned, for instance. Were Baptists even a thing? Of course, in a work of this scale the writer will have to be highly selective, but a less Anglo-centric and Anglican-centric account would have made for a more rounded history. 

Gripes aside, there a good things here too. The shadowy origins of British and Irish Christianity are charted with care. The Medieval period isn't written off as a 'Dark Age' altogether devoid of gospel light. Take a bow, Anselm. Periods of Reformation and Revival and some of the key figures connected with them are given due attention. For an avowed Anglican Bray is highly sympathetic towards the Puritans and has little time for Charles I. 

The author's sweeping overview of the history of Christianity in these islands concludes with him charting the rapid decline in church attendance and influence in recent decades. The roots of decline are traced to factors in the Victorian era, where many people had a 'form of godliness', but knew little of its power. Bray makes it clear that where churches are growing in this secular age they tend to be biblically faithful, gospel preaching fellowships. Church groupings that have changed their beliefs to fit in with the times are on their way out. Maybe there was something to be said for Lloyd-Jones's 1966 call for Evangelicals to leave the doctrinally compromised denominations and come together to reach the nation for Christ? 

For now the church in Britain and Ireland finds itself 'singing the Lord's song in a strange land' as marginalised exiles. We must fight the good fight of faith and pray that our God will once more pour out his Spirit upon us in reviving power. 

The Journey to the Mayflower: God’s Outlaws and the Invention of Freedom, by Stephen Tomkins

2020 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, Audible edition

In September 1620 a band of intrepid pilgrims boarded the Mayflower and set off for a new life in the New World. The colony they founded helped to shape what became the United States of America. They were Separatists, that is men and women who had left the Church of England to gather themselves into congregations that were governed by their understanding of the biblical model of church life. That was a radical step during the late 1500's and early 1600's. The Monarch was the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. To leave the Anglican Church was not to exercise a legitimate religious right, it was an act of sedition against the State. 

While the Puritans agitated for a further reformation of the Church of England from within as permitted by the authorities, Separatists advocated Reformation Without Tarrying for Anie, as Robert Browne put it in one of the key works of Separatism. The hostile attentions of government and the Bishops drove the Separatist churches underground, initially in London and then elsewhere in England. If caught Separatists leaders were left to fester in prison, or even faced execution. Henry Barrow and John Greenwood were hanged in April 1593 for writing seditious books. John Penry was similarly charged and executed one month later. 

Separatists were often labelled 'Brownists' after their leader Robert Browne. Browne fled persecution in England, founding a Separatist Church in Holland, but the work was riven by factions and infighting. Not finding Separatism to his liking after all, Browne returned to the Church of England. The Separatists hated being labelled with the name of a turncoat. 

Separatists longed to be free to gather their congregations composed of true believers and their children outside of the Church of England. Some regarded the Established Church as hopelessly corrupt and false, others as a true Church that was badly in need of further reform. Separatist thinkers noted that coercing people into belonging to a certain church was alien to the spirit of true Christianity. The New Testament model of church life was not that of the Bishop-dominated Church of England, but congregational, where church members had a say in the government of the church and the appointment of its leaders. 

Some like John Smyth and Thomas Helwys took Separatism to the next logical step and became Baptists. After all, if the church was to be composed of true believers covenanted together, infants could neither believe or willingly covenant to belong to a congregation. Smyth and Helwys came under the influence of Arminianism while in Holland. They were 'General Baptists', believing that Christ died for all people in general. Separatist Hanseard Knollys and others advocated believer's baptism, but within a Calvinistic framework. They were 'Particular Baptists'. teaching that Jesus laid down his life for the elect in particular. 

John Robinson (1576-1625) led a Separatist congregation in Leiden, Holland, where it was possible to 'do church' free from the persecution they would have faced in England. Robinson was a strong advocate of religious liberty and freedom of conscience. The Separatist imagination was fired by the story of the children of Israel leaving oppression in Egypt in search of freedom to serve the Lord in the Promised Land. For Robinson and members of his flock the Promised Land was the New World. And so it was 'All aboard the Mayflower' in September 1620.

The governing document of their Plymouth Colony was the 'Mayflower Compact', in which 41 of the 101 passengers elected to covenant together to form a 'Body Politick' to govern the colony in line with 'just and equal laws'. The original Separatists often faced brutal harassment and persecution. They were regarded as a threat to the good order of church and state. But their key ideas would exert a powerful influence on the development of modern society. Ideas such as the separation of church and state, freedom of religion and the democratic right to self-determination. Congregationalists and Baptists are now sizeable groups in the global Christian family.

Ably read by Richard Burnip, Stephen Tomkins' account of The Journey to the Mayflower tells the compelling story of a despised sect who changed the world. Well worth a listen. 

Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind by Tom Holland [mini review]

As a child the historian Tom Holland was fascinated by the ancient Romans and Greeks. Holland, who hails from Wiltshire, went on to author several bestselling books on Roman and Greek history, Rubicon, Persian Fire and Dynasty. But the more he got into the ancient world, the more morally repellent he found the ‘heroes’ of that age. It was said that Julius Caesar slaughtered a million Gauls and forced another million into slavery. Rather condemning Caesar as a genocidal war criminal, the citizens of Rome hailed him as a mighty leader whose exploits redounded to the glory of the Empire.

Holland became increasingly aware that his perspective on life was vastly different to that of the old Romans and Greeks. He realised that his idea of what’s right and wrong had been formed by a culture that had been deeply influenced by the Christian faith. In his most recent book Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind, Holland shows how our commonly accepted moral values were shaped by Christian teachings. We take it as self-evident that all people should be treated with dignity and respect. But that belief didn’t come from nowhere.

The Bible insists that all human beings are made in the image of God and are deserving of love and care from womb to tomb. The value of human life is underlined by the belief that in Jesus our Creator became one of us. He came to suffer and die on the cross that we might be forgiven and be put right with God. “It is the audacity of it”, writes Holland, “the audacity of finding in a twisted and defeated corpse the glory of the creator of the universe”.

We went to hear the author give a talk on Dominion towards the end of last year and I’ve just finished reading the book. It’s a brilliantly written account of the impact of the Christian faith on Western culture and values, covering everything from the Bible to The Beatles, Monasteries to #MeToo. Holland is not a personal believer in Jesus Christ. He calls himself a ‘cultural Christian’. But he recognises that the ‘molten heart’ of the Christian revolution is the cross of Jesus. The message of the cross turned the world upside down, exalting the lowly and humbling the mighty.

For the Romans, crucifixion was a symbol of brute power, ‘this is what you get if you mess with us’.  Since Jesus the cross has an altogether different message, ‘God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’ The love of God that streams from the cross changed the course of history and is still transforming lives today.

*Write-up for local publications: White Horse News, Trinity Magazine and News & Views. A full review can now be found here. 

Seven Leaders: Preachers and Pastors by Iain H. Murray

Banner of Truth Trust, 2017, 279pp 

The author wrote this book out of the conviction that lessons of abiding importance may be learned from godly and able preachers and pastors across the ages. It will be of interest to men aspiring to pastoral ministry, or who are just setting out in that work. Here they will find role models to follow whose example will both challenge and encourage them. More seasoned pastors will also find help here. If we are not careful it is easy to drift into going through the motions of ministry, rather than our work being the overflow of deep communion with God. These pages will provide a necessary corrective. Those not called to preach or pastor will none the less find their souls stirred by Murray’s accounts of seven exceptional Ministers of the Gospel.

Attention is given to seven men: John Elias, Andrew A. Bonar, Archie Brown, Kenneth A MacRae, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, W. J. Grier and John MacArthur. Murray does not so much give us potted biographies of these varied characters, as attempt to show what made them tick. These are very different men, called to serve the Lord at different times and in different situations. Some had more academic training than others. All were wonderfully used by the Lord to accomplish great things for him.

While certainly not like peas in a pod, these ‘Magnificent Seven’ Ministers had a number of things in common that helps account for their usefulness. They were all strongly Calvinistic in their doctrinal emphasis, some at times when the Reformed faith seemed to be going out of fashion. They maintained their stand for the sovereign grace of God because they were convinced that the great truths commonly labelled ‘Calvinism’ were in fact nothing less than biblical Christianity.

The importance of prayer and communion with God in ministry is highlighted in the chapter on Andrew A. Bonar. The thoughtful reader will be humbled, challenged and made to yearn for a deeper walk with God through Bonar’s example. A missing note in some Evangelical circles today is the need for the empowering presence of the Spirit in preaching. The preachers described here were men of the Word, yet they also longed and prayed for the Spirit’s work upon their preaching and in the lives of their hearers. He alone is able to give the Word preached its life-transforming effectiveness.  

All were evangelistic preachers, in that they intentionally addressed their messages to the unconverted, aiming at their salvation. In addition, Murray shows that these gifted preachers worked hard to make their content-rich sermons as clear, logical and easy to follow as possible. Helpful instances are given as to how they did just that, especially in the chapters on Lloyd-Jones and MacRae. 

Martin Luther once wrote, “It is not by reading, writing, or speculation that one becomes a theologian. Nay, rather, it is living, dying, and being damned that makes one a theologian.” The same may be said of pastors and Murray describes how the Lord made these men tender hearted shepherds of the flock by bringing suffering and trials into their lives, This is especially brought out in the chapter on C. H. Spurgeon’s friend and contemporary, Archie Brown. 

Some chapters are stronger than others. Elias, Bonar, Brown and Lloyd-Jones are highlights. I'd barely heard of MacRae, but enjoyed Murray's pen portrait of the Isle of Lewis pastor. I found the one on W.J Grier a little hard going. The MacArthur chapter was good on preaching and Scripture. 

The book as a whole is a standing reminder of one vital fact, “what a preacher is as a Christian is of greater consequence than his natural gifts. In the words of M’Cheyne: ‘It is not great talents that God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.’” The great burden of this work is a call to return to the apostolic pattern of gospel ministry, 'we will give ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word' (Acts 6:4). In that order. 

* Reviewed for Evangelical Times. 

Why should any Church of England Bishops sit in the House of Lords?

A recently produced report, LIVING WITH DIFFERENCE community, diversity and the common good argued, "The pluralist character of modern society should be reflected in national forums such as the House of Lords,so that they include a wider range of worldviews and religious traditions, and of Christian denominations other than the Church of England". The thrust of the report is that Britain is no longer a 'Christian country' and that should be reflected in the worlds of politics, society and education. I would venture to suggest that the report does not go far enough when it comes to Church of England Bishops taking ex-officio seats in the House of Lords. The fact that they do is a reminder that the Church of England is the Established Church of this part of the United Kingdom. That is why the position of the Archbishop of Canterbury is not quite the same as pastor of an independent evangelical Church. He is appointed to office by the Prime Minister of this country, under the authority of Her Majesty the Queen, who is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. The integral link between Church and State in our constitution explains why Anglican Bishops sit in the House of Lords where they have the authority to scrutinise and amend Government legislation.

In effect the Church of England is the religious arm of the State. This is a throwback to the Reformation under Henry VIII. The king divided from the Rome because the Pope would not sanction his divorce from Catherine of Aragorn. He quickly installed himself as Supreme Governor of the English Church, which remained largely Catholic in its structure and teaching under his reign. Archbishop Cranmer slowly nudged the Church of England in the direction of Protestantism, with huge strides being made under Edward VI. Then came the backlash Catholic under Queen Mary, followed by the the stabilising reign of Elizabeth I. And so the Church has remained unchanged, the established Protestant Church of England (apart from the experiment with Presbyterianism during the Commonwealth period). In some ways, Anglicanism is a strange beast, with its Roman Catholic-style Episcopal government and Protestant 39 Articles. The Church finds itself stuck in an historic compromise between Rome and Geneva, with its leaders appointed by a democratically elected Prime Minister.

We could go back even further and discuss the alliance of Church and State under Constantine and the development of Christendom, but let's not go there. The question is, 'Should the Church of England remain Established?' I would argue that it should not, because the idea of an established Church is alien to the New Testament. Under the old covenant there was no distinction between the religious and civil aspects of Israel's life. The nation was a theocracy - God's chosen nation, living under the terms of his covenant. But all that changed under the new covenant. Now the people of God are gathered from all nations. The Church may be a theocracy under the lordship of Christ, but she is distinct from the State.

Church and State are two very different institutions. The State has been ordained by God to restrain evil and preserve peace and order in society (Romans 13:1-7). But the Church has been called to carry out her Great Commission to preach the gospel and make disciples for Christ from all peoples. The State may use force to subdue law breakers and protect its citizens. The Church's only weapon is the sword of the Spirit, the word of God. State establishment obscures the Church's unique gospel-centred mission. That is why there is no sense in the New Testament that the Church should aspire to establishment by the State. Obviously, that kind of thing would have been impossible anyway under Nero. But the apostles don't so much as hint that establishment would be in any way desirable. All they asked was that the State tolerate the existence and activities of the Church (see Paul in Acts). The apostles would certainly have been outraged at the thought that the State should appoint Church leaders. However, the Church/State distinction found so clearly in the New Testament was gradually eroded away from Constantine onwards.

Even the Reformers were willing to use the powers of the State to further their cause. They are called Magisterial Reformers because they expected the Magistrate to help reform both church and society. In 16th century England, some Protestant got so fed up with the slow pace of Reform in the Church of England, that they took the radical step of separating from the established Church. In the words of a title of one of their books, they believed in Reformation without Tarrying for Any. These Separatists, men like Henry Barrowe, John Greenwood and John Penry argued that the Church should not have to wait for permission from the State to implement reform. This was seen as so subversive of the unity of the country that some Separatists were actually put to death. But it slowly began to dawn on more and more Protestants that Church and State should be separated. The Independent Puritans tended to this view, while Presbyterians held that the godly Magistrate had a duty to assist with Church reformation. The 1689 Baptist Confession amends the Westminster Confession's section on the Civil Magistrate(here), to limit the State's role in Church affairs (here).

Some would no doubt like to see the Church of England disestablished for reasons of secular pluralism. The report cited at the top of this post does not call for full-blown disestablishment, but for a limit to be placed on the number of Church of England Bishops in the Lords, while room is made for representatives of other faiths. Pluralism is the order of the day where an attempt is made to reduce all faiths to an irreducible minimum that amounts to little more than, 'Let's all be nice to each other'. While I'm all in favour of peaceful co-existence between people of all faiths and none, that cannot be at the expense of the doctrinal disctinctives of the Christian faith.

The report also veers towards a secularising agenda that would push faith-based values and views to the margins of public life. While I would welcome the separation of Church and State, that does not mean the public square should be seen as a God-free zone. Jesus Christ is Lord of all. He is head of the church and King of the world. All created reality is subject to his rule, including human society and culture. Christians should act as salt and light to influence the direction of their country. Having Church of England Bishops sit in the Lords is not the way to do it. But individual believers can exercise influence by serving as politicians, writing to their MPs on matters of concern, getting involved in their local communities and so on. By all those means and more we can 'seek the peace of the city' and ensure that Christian values are brought to bear upon the public square.

In 1914, the Church of England was disestablished in Wales, largely due to pressure from the Nonconformist Churches. Isn't it about time that England got up to speed?

*This is an update of a post that was published a while back. 

Heroes of the Faith: Ignatius, Polycarp & Irenaeus by Sinclair B. Ferguson

Ignatius of Antioch: The man who faced lions 

Polycarp of Smyrna: The man whose faith lasted 

Ireneas of Lyons: The man who wrote books

 Sinclair B. Ferguson, Banner of Truth Trust, 2010, Hardback 40pp

These three books are part of a new series, Heroes of the Faith. When complete it will introduce readers to notable members of the Christian family from the first to the twentieth centuries. The author’s intention is to provide younger children with role models of Christian faith, love and endurance.

Such qualities are certainly found in abundance in the first three characters whose stories are told in the series. Great friends, Ignatius and Polycarp faced a martyr’s death because of their love for the Lord Jesus. Irenaes was a bold defender of the gospel who wrote an important work, Against All False Teaching.

The books are beautifully produced, with eye-catching illustrations, informative maps and well-chosen excerpts from the writings of the three “heroes”. 

Writing with great simplicity and directness, Sinclair Ferguson does much more than give potted biographies of Ignatius, Polycarp and Ireneas. He interweaves their life stories with a clear presentation the gospel that they lived to preach.

Children will enjoy these exciting stories of heroic faith. Ideal for use in times of family worship with younger children.  

* Reviewed for Protestant Truth magazine. 

Light from the Dark Ages

Lord, I acknowledge and I thank you that you has created me in this your image, in order that I may be mindful of you, may conceive of you, and love you; but that image has been so consumed and wasted away by vices, and obscured by the smoke of wrong-doing, that it cannot achieve that for which it was made, except you renew it, and create it anew. I do not endeavor, O Lord, to penetrate your sublimity, for in no wise do I compare my understanding with that; but I long to understand in some degree your truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe, --that unless I believed, I should not understand. (Anselm, Proslogion).

In an interview with Carl Trueman I asked him a couple of questions on the value of church history:

GD: So, you're a church historian. What's the point of knowing all that old stuff?

CT: Christianity is an historical religion. It is only as we understand the past, how the Bible's teaching has been transmitted to us through history, that we can truly understand the significance of our position in the present. To be clueless about history is to absolutise the present. I think Karl Marx put it nicely: men make history, but they do not make the history that they choose. We are, individually and corporately, determined to an extent by the past; learning about that past liberates us.

GD: Well, I can see that the Early Church Fathers with their creeds and that are important, and the Reformation just rocks. But who cares about the Medievals, weren't they all just monks and popes or something?

CT: I used to think that; but study of post-Reformation Protestantism (that of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) has convinced me that much of what is basic to our Christian doctrine in the Reformed tradition (e.g., the nature of God, necessity, predestination etc) was self-consciously appropriated by the Reformed from medieval theology. After all, why reinvent the wheel? If good arguments on these points were made in the Middle Ages, it would be foolish not to use them.

The questions were a little 'tongue in cheek', but I think the second one fairly represents the attitude of many Evangelicals  to the medieval period of church history. Trueman's answer hints at why we should give more respectful attention to the theologians of the Middle Ages.

In his book Holy Ground: Walking with Jesus as a former Catholic (Zondervan, 2009), Chris Castaldo discusses the "ditch" theory of church history as illustrated in the diagram below. Once again the suggestion (with which Castaldo disagrees) is that not much is to be learned from the "ditch" of compromise and heresy which into which the medieval Church had fallen.

However, as Trueman points out, the Reformers and those who followed in their wake were willing to learn from medieval theologians and utilise their best insights in the service of the Reformed faith. In his 2000 Years of Christ's Power, Part Two: The Middle Ages, (2000, Grace Publications), Nick Needham includes a preface "For Evangelicals who find the Catholic Middle Ages hard to understand". He acknowledges that Evangelicals will have problems with some aspects of the medieval Church, but he sees the Reformation not so much as a rejection of what went before but,

As an heir of the Reformation and a Church historian, I often find myself telling people that the great spiritual and theological movement set rolling by Luther and Zwingli was in fact the best elements of Western medieval Christianity trying to correct the worst elements. (p. 10).

With that in mind the other day I  purchased Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works, Oxford World's Classics, Reissued 2008. Only £6.37 from Amazon.co.uk It includes Monologion, Proslogion, and probably his most famous work, Why God Became Man. With Anselm helping my faith seeking understanding, I look forward to receiving light from the 'Dark Ages'. Also along these lines, have a look at Paul Helm's recent post on Aquinas on Predestination and his thougths on Anselm's Perfect Being Theology.

Gottschalk of Orbais a medieval "Five Point Calvinist"

Indeed, just as He [God] predestined all of the elect to life through the gratuity of the free grace of His kindness, as the pages of the Old and New Testaments very clearly, skillfully, and soberly show those seeking wisdom on this matter, so also He altogether predestined the reprobate to the punishment of eternal death, of course, through the most righteous judgment of His immutable justice. (Reply to Rabanus Maurus, Gottschalk of Orbias)

In his book, The Reformation's Conflict with Rome: Why it must Continue! (reviewed here), Robert Reymond mentioned Gottschalk as one of the few medievals to have a clear conception of Paul's teaching on salvation by grace alone (see p. 68 & 82). I first came across Gottschalk (805-69) in Nick Needham's 2000 Years of Christ's Power, Part Two: The Middle Ages, 2000, Grace Publications. Needham gives a potted summary of Gottschalk's controversial career. The son of a Saxon nobleman, Gottschalk was placed in the abbey of Fulda when a child. When he grew up his abbot, Rabanus Maurus refused to release him from his monastic vows. However, he allowed him to move to the monastery at Orbias in north eastern France. Gottschalk was an ardent disciple of Augustine of Hippo. His passionate teaching of Augustinian views on sin, grace and predestination got him into hot water with his old abbot, Rabanus. Eventually his doctrine was condemned at the council of Mainz in 848. Following that, his archbishop, Hincmar of Rheims deposed Gottschalk  from the priesthood, had him flogged within an inch of his life and imprisoned him in the monastery of Hautvilliers, where the turbulent monk spent the rest of his days.

All of the so-called "Five Points of Calvinism" later set out at the Synod of Dort were found in Gottschalk's teaching: The total depravity of man in sin, unconditional election to salvation and eternal life (and the reprobation of the non-elect), Christ died only for the elect or limited atonement, irresistibly effectual grace and the final perseverance of the saints.

Gottschalk was also a notable poet and Needham includes a translation of one of  his hymns,

Freely You created my by Your goodness;

Freely create me afresh, I pray and restore me to life!

Freely You bestow Your gifts, which is why we say they are "by grace".

O Holy Spirit, You bring instant life to those You breathe into:

Together with the Father and His Son, You thunder forth, govern and give light.

You increase and You quicken the faith

Which You grant to whomever You choose.

Gottschalk's teaching was championed by Remigius of Lyons, Florus of Lyons and Prudentius of Troyes. It just goes to show that even in the "Dark Ages" prior to the Reformation that the light of the gospel was not totally extinguished. Have a look at Francis X. Gumerlock essay on Gottschalk of Orbias: A Medieval Predestinarian. The Gottschalk Homepage also has lots of helpful material.

Heroes by Iain H. Murray

Heroes, by Iain H. Murray, Banner of Truth Trust, 2009, 303pp

Here Iain Murray pays homage to some of his spiritual heroes and seeks to draw lessons from their lives. He offers an unashamedly exemplarist style of biography that is at odds with the more critical writing of some contemporary Evangelical scholars. He takes exception to Harry S. Stout's work, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism, charging him with sharing the naturalistic presuppositions of unbelieving historians. For Murray the purpose of Christian biography is not to do a hatchet job on the subject, mercilessly exposing their faults and failings. He knows very well that saints are also sinners and uncritical adulation of great preachers must be avoided. But we still have much to learn from the example of those who have gone before us.

In the opening chapter, the writer returns to the the subject of one of his full length biographies, considering Jonathan Edwards, The Man and the Legacy. Drawing on scholarly work that was not available to him when he wrote the biography, Murray offers a compact and compelling account of Edwards' life. He commends Edwards to his readers as a theologian of revival and Christian experience. Edwards' ministry is an abiding witness to the fact that Calvinistic orthodoxy is not enough on its own. We need the presence and power of the Holy Spirit to make the preaching of sovereign grace effective in advancing the gospel of salvation.

In George Whitefield and Christian Unity, Murray highlights the 18th century evangelist's catholicity of spirit. Whitefield held fast to his theological and ecclesiastical distinctives as a Calvinistic Anglican clergyman. But he had a deep love and regard for all true believers. We have a lot to learn from Whitefield on the importance of keeping the main thing the main thing. A winsome catholicity of spirit will do more good than angry bigotry in commending the doctrines of grace to a wider Evangelical world.

Chapters are devoted to the famous John Newton and the not so well known (outside of Wales) Thomas Charles. Murray gives skillful pen portraits of both men. Lessons from the life and ministry of the two preachers are helpfully applied.

The story is told of Two Men and an Island, the two men being William Hepburn Hewitson and Robert Reid Kalley, and the island being Madeira. God mightily used the sacrificial labours of these two missionary pioneers. Many Madeiran people were converted in the face of intense persecution from the Roman Catholic infuenced authorities.

Controversially, Murray includes a chapter on Charles and Mary Colcok Jones. Charles was an evangelist to slaves in the the American "Old South". The problem is that he was also the owner of a large plantation manned by slave labour. Jones undoubtedly had a deep concern for enslaved people and did all he could to reach them with the gospel. His efforts were blessed and many blacks were converted under his ministry. But his work was compromised by the fact that he was a slave owner preaching to slaves. He believed that slavery should be gradually phased out and distanced himself from the more impatient emancipationists in the North. While we cannot doubt Jones' genuine love for slaves, his ownership of enslaved black people makes him a badly conflicted hero.

Finally, Murray gives a stirring account of Spurgeon as an Evangelist. Such were the exceptional gifts possessed by the preacher, we might think that we have little to learn from his example. But Spurgeon was a model evangelist. He was a man of prayer who depended upon the Holy Spirit as he proclaimed the gospel of salvation in the great Metropolitan Tabernacle. We may not be as eminently gifted as the Victorian pastor, but as M'Cheyne reminds us, "It is not great gifts that God is pleased to bless, but great likeness to Jesus." Spurgeon calls us to be men of God if we would be used by God.

I was a little unwell when I read this book. It was a real tonic and encouragement to me as well as being very challenging. In an age of jaundiced cynicism we could do with some heroes. Murray has succeeded in bringing to life some of the great heroes of the Christian Church, "whose faith follow considering the outcome of their conduct. Jesus Christ is the same yesteday, today and for ever." (Hebrews 13:7 & 8).

Jacob Arminius (1560-1609)

Arminius and his Arminianism

In what must be one of the great ironies of church history, Jacob Arminius shares an anniversary year with John Calvin. The Genevan Reformer was born 500 years ago on 10th July 1509. Arminius, who did so much to question Calvin’s theology of sovereign grace died 400 years ago today, on 19th October 1609. Like Calvin, he is one of the few figures in Christian history to have lent his name to an “ism”. His teachings, popularly labelled Arminianism have spread far and wide and influenced many. Even evangelicals have not been immune to his views. During the Evangelical Revival in the 18th century, George Whitefield famously fell out with John Wesley over the latter’s Arminianism. In this article we will look at the man behind the “ism” and consider how Jacob Arminius became an “Arminian”. Most importantly we need to ask whether Arminianism stands up to the test of Scripture.

Early life

Jacob Arminius was born in Oudewater, southern Holland in 1560. His father died when he was an infant, but wealthy friends of the family provided for Jacob’s education. He studied at the Universities of Marburg and Leiden before being sent to Geneva, where he sat at the feet of Theodore Beza, Calvin’s successor in the city. Arminius was a diligent scholar and his work impressed his teachers, including Beza.

But student life is not for ever and in 1588 Arminius was invited to return to Holland as one of the pastors of the Reformed Church in Amsterdam. In 1590 he married Elizabeth Reael, daughter of an Amsterdam Magistrate with whom he was to have nine children. The doctrinal basis of the Dutch Reformed Church was the Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession, both solidly Calvinistic documents. In 1603, Arminius was appointed Professor of Divinity in his old almer mater, the University of Leiden. But it soon became evident that his theology was not in accordance with Reformed orthodoxy. His ideas on predestination proved especially controversial. Arminius rooted election in God’s foreknowledge of which sinners would believe in Christ.

The origin of his ideas

It used to be thought that Arminius’ problems with the Reformed doctrine of predestination began when he was asked to refute the unorthodox views of Dirck Coonhert, an opponent of Calvinistic theology. But this account has been challenged by more recent scholarship (See God, Creation and Providence in the Thought of Jacob Arminius, Richard A. Muller, Baker, 1991). To understand Arminius properly we need to set him in his proper historical context.

In the early 17th century orthodox Reformed theologians began to draw heavily on the resources of medieval scholastic theology. They looked to the writings of Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus and others as they sought to develop a more systematic approach to theology. Scholasticism offered a sophisticated theological method that came with its own ready made technical arguments and special terms. All this was very handy for discussing the finer points of Reformed theology. Arminius would have received a thorough grounding in the scholastics during his student years.

In looking back to scholasticism, the orthodox Reformed were following in the footsteps of John Calvin himself. Calvin rejected the wilder speculative excesses of the scholastic theologians. But he used their arguments and terminology when it suited his purpose. Like Calvin, later Reformation leaders found Aquinas especially helpful. He emphasised the sovereignty of divine grace in salvation, harking back to the teachings of Augustine of Hippo. The orthodox Reformed were not only familiar with the older scholastic tradition, they also engaged with the leading Roman Catholic theologians of the day. Some in the Roman Catholic Church were beginning to question the Augustinian thread in Aquinas’ teaching. Amongst the critics was Luis de Molina, an early Jesuit theologian. Molina tried to reconcile the sovereignty of God with human freedom. He posited a theory of “middle knowledge”, where God’s knowledge of future events is dependent on the free actions of human beings.

The influence of Molina can be traced in Arminius’ thinking on the relationship between God and humanity. He too spoke in terms of “middle knowledge”. The Leiden professor taught that God has placed limits upon himself so that human beings may act with freedom. This obviously poses a problem for the Reformed doctrine of predestination, which insists that God has sovreignly willed whatever comes to pass. Election is not based on God foreseeing which human beings would freely choose to be saved. Rather, God has graciously elected some sinners to life and salvation in Christ in accordance with the good pleasure of his will.

Teachings

Alarm bells soon began to ring when Arminius’ ideas on predestination were made public through his teaching at Leiden. Some insisted that he should be called to justify his views in a specially convened synod. Arminius refused, arguing that his teaching was in accordance with the Reformed Confessions. He may have sincerely believed this to be the case, as have several of his followers, but he was mistaken. The Belgic Confession states,

Article 16: The Doctrine of Election

"We believe that-- all Adam's descendants having thus fallen into perdition and ruin by the sin of the first man-- God showed himself to be as he is: merciful and just. He is merciful in withdrawing and saving from this perdition those whom he, in his eternal and unchangeable counsel, has elected and chosen in Jesus Christ our Lord by his pure goodness, without any consideration of their works. He is just in leaving the others in their ruin and fall into which they plunged themselves."

Arminius’ position is quite different.

"God decreed to save and damn certain particular persons. This decree has its foundation in the foreknowledge of God, by which he knew from all eternity those individuals who would, through his preceding grace, believe, and, through his subsequent grace would persevere, according to the administration of those means which are suitable and proper for conversion and faith; and, by which foreknowledge, he likewise knew those who would not believe and persevere." (Works Of Jacob Arminius, Volume 1 - here).

Note that Arminius ascribes election to the grace of God. This grace is sufficient to save whoever will believe, but it does not effect salvation in those whom God has chosen. Election is simply a matter of God foreknowing who would avail themselves of the offer of redemption. This teaching subtly undermines the Reformation insistence that salvation is by grace alone. If by virtue of universal grace all sinners theoretically have the ability to choose to be saved, then why do not all sinners in fact choose to be saved? In the end it must come down to an element of human choice. Some choose to avail themselves of salvation in Christ, but others do not. For all that is said about this choice being grace-enabled, this is not an effective grace that actually saves, but merely a grace that facilitates the sinner’s choice to believe. Arminianism is a form of Semi-Pelagianism, which teaches that man must co-operate with God’s grace in order to be saved.

This questions the New Testament’s verdict that the unbeliever is dead in trespasses and sins and is therefore unable to choose to be reconciled to God. According to the Bible grace is both sufficient and effective, 2 Timothy 1:8-10. When Scripture speaks of the foreknowledge of God it does not mean that God simply looked into the future to see who would choose to be saved. Consider what Paul says in Romans 8:29-30. By “foreknew” Paul means something like “fore-loved”. God loved certain sinners and predestined them to be conformed to the image of his Son. He takes the initiative throughout the processes of salvation. God calls, justifies, and glorifies his chosen people. This does not mean that he forces salvation upon unwilling human beings. Rather, the Father sets us free to believe in Christ and be saved by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Influence

After long resisting an open discussion of his views, Arminius finally agreed to a conference at The Hague where his teaching could be properly examined. But he fell ill and died on 19th October 1609. His Arminianism did not die with him. In 1610 a group of Dutch divines sympathetic to Arminius’ theology issued the Remonstrant Articles, which may be summarised,

1. Predestination is conditional on God foreknowing who would believe.
2. Christ died for all, although only believers will be saved.
3. Human beings are sinners and cannot believe apart from the grace of God.
4. Saving grace may be resisted.
5. The doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints needs to be investigated further.

Many have found Arminius’ theology appealing. After all it is flattering to think that we can make at least some small contribution to our salvation. The anti-Puritan Archbishop Laud and his followers held to Arminian doctrine. John Wesley had his Arminian leanings. Huge sectors of evangelicalism are in fact Arminian. That is what lies behind the crusade-type evangelism, where sinners are urged to “decide for Christ". Arminianism is a distortion of the gospel. It has had a baleful effect upon the theology and mission of the church. Jacob Arminius was a learned and able theologian, yet we must reject his teaching because it robs the triune God of his glory in salvation. In a future post I hope to say something about the Synod of Dort, which was called in 1618 to give the definitive Reformed response to the Remonstrants’ Arminian views - see here.

* An edited version of this article was published in October's Evangelical Times.

Blogging in the name of the Lord: R. Scott Clark

This is the second in a series of interviews with Christian bloggers. In the hot seat today is...

R. Scott Clark

GD: Hello R. Scott Clark and welcome to Exiled Preacher. Please tell us a little about yourself.

RSC: Hello Guy. Thanks for the invitation. I became a broadly-evangelical Christian in the mid-70s. I found the Reformed faith (or perhaps I should that it found me!) about 1980. I was raised in the midwest of the USA and attended seminary at Westminster Seminary California and served a congregation in Kansas City, Missouri (pronounced "Miz-ur-rah" in Kansas City) from 1987-93. For the next two years my family and I were in Oxford, UK pursuing graduate studies. After that we were in Wheaton, IL at Wheaton College. I've been back at Westminster Seminary California since 1997.

GD: Your blog is called 'The Heidelblog' please explain.

RSC: The title is a reference to the home of the German Reformed Church and theology, Heidelberg. It's also a pretty blatant plagiarizing of Kim Riddlebarger's "Riddleblog."

GD: What made you start blogging?

RSC: I began the HB as a way to comment on the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), a worthy project from which I've been diverted and to which I need to return. Somewhere I read that "writers write." I needed a place to write on a regular basis and to try to do on a more public basis what I found myself doing privately by email, namely, answering questions.

GD: What are the strengths and weaknesses of blogging as a medium for theological reflection?

RSC: One strength is that it has taught me certain particularly sinful habits and attitudes and thence it has taught me humility. It regularly reinforces to me the limits of my abilities and reading. The immediacy of the medium puts me quickly into contact with a wide range of questions and issues of which I would otherwise be ignorant. It usually takes months or longer to get an article into print and it usually takes at least a year to get a book into print. Because it can be done so quickly it can be a great way to start or have a conversation and to try out new ideas. It is not a good medium for presenting detailed, careful, academic research. Because blogging lacks editorial controls it demands of the writer the virtues of self-control and prudence—virtues that are not as much in evidence in me as they should be.

GD: Who has had the greatest influence on your theological development?

RSC: Packer's 'Knowing God' and Calvin's 'Institutes' were the first Reformed works I read. I'm sure that they have shaped me in ways of which I'm not even aware. Bob Strimple's biblical-exegetical approach to systematic theology at WSC laid strong foundations. Bob Godfrey's lectures in church history put me into contact with the whole Christian tradition. Reading 16th- and 17th-century Reformed orthodoxy (especially Wollebius) Recently I think I've been most influenced by Mike Horton's series with WJKP and by Darryl Hart's work (especially, 'The Lost Soul of American Protestantism').

GD: Why should today's Christians be interested in church history and historical theology?

RSC: Christians are redeemed by Christ alone (sola gratia, sola fide) to be a part of the covenant community, i.e. the visible church. The church did not begin last week. It has a history and every Christian, by virtue of the the fact of being a Christian, is a part of a historic tradition. Consider the very name "Christian." We are given the name of Christ in baptism. It is a historic name (given to us by others). It is the name of a historic person, God the Son who entered into history to be our Redeemer. Thus our faith itself is grounded in the history of salvation. The Christian faith is unavoidably historical. The way we worship, the way we read Scripture, the way we think of God, man, Christ, sin, salvation, the church, sacraments, last things, and the Christian life are all conditioned by history. Thus the question is not whether we are going think about history but whether we are going to do it well.

GD: There has been a reassessment of the value of scholastic theology in the last few years. What can Reformed Christians learn from the scholastics?

RSC: Much in every way. They mediated to us a theology, piety, and practice. Many of the great Protestant confessions were formed by and under the influence of Protestant orthodoxy. They gave us our vocabulary, a hermeneutic, an approach to worship, to prayer, to the Christian life that we've been begun to recover.
For much of the modern period we were tempted to try to think of the history of the church after the medieval period as consisting of the Reformation and modern churches. We sort of leap-frogged the post-Reformation church and theology. In this view we were too often willing victims of Enlightenment hostility to a rich resource for theology and church life. Now, however, thanks to the pioneering work of a number of scholars in the 70s and 80s we've begun to clear away the vines from a solid old footbridge between the Reformation and the modern church and we've found there was much to learn. My students can't imagine what it be like to be without Ursinus, Ames, Wollebius, Turretin, or Wtisius, just to name a few.

GD: David Bebbington famously claimed (in 'Evangelicalism in Modern Britian') that evangelicalism is largely a product of the 18th century Enlightenment. What do you make of his thesis?

RSC: It's all a matter of definition. If the adjective "evangelical" is used in its original Protestant sense, then "evangelical" simply means "confessional" or "magisterial Protestant." It refers to the recovery of the biblical (and Pauline) doctrine of justification in the Reformation, the Reformation doctrine that acceptance with God is by God's undeserved favor alone and received through faith resting in and receiving Christ and his righteousness imputed alone as the ground of acceptance with God. It refers to the notion that salvation (justification and sanctification) is mediated through the visible church, through the preaching of the gospel and administration of the sacraments. It refers to the hermeneutical/theological distinction between law and gospel. As a matter of sociology and modern history, the modern evangelical movement is, in many important ways deeply influenced by modernity. The theology, piety, and practice mediated to us by the so-called "First Great Awakening" is at least partly indebted to the idealism of the Cambridge Platonists. The subjectivism of modern the evangelical movements is indebted to Romanticism. Modern fundamentalism was influenced by Enlightenment rationalism. In 'Recovering the Reformed Confession' I describe the subjectivist impulse of modern evangelical religion as the Quest for Illegitimate Religious Experience (QIRE), i.e. the desire to experience God without mediation. This quest was fueled partly by a reaction to the doubt and fear created by early modern criticisms of the faith. The rationalism of modern fundamentalism reflects the Quest for Illegitimate Religious Certainty (QIRC) or the desire to know things the way God knows them as distinct from the way he reveals himself to us. It is a desire to get behind revelation.
There is also a real question as to whether there really is such a thing as "evangelicalism," at least in North America. The project of the modern evangelicals, especially since the mid-1940s was to form an alliance organized around a common religious experience and a high view of Scripture. The movement was intentionally churchless. The minimalism of the neo-evangelical movement, however, did not prepare it well for what was to come. Today, in North America, it's almost impossible to say what makes one "evangelical" since there is no common doctrine of God, man, Christ, salvation, church, sacraments or last things. For example, the split over "Evangelicals and Catholics Together" revealed that there was no longer even a common definition of "the gospel" or of justification and that was the material doctrine of justification. There's been no shared doctrine of Scripture since at least the early 70s. Thus, Darryl Hart, in 'Deconstructing Evangelicalism', has questioned whether "evangelicalism" even exists anymore.

GD: You have written on "Recovering the Reformed Confession". If "the Bible alone is the religion of Protestants", why do we need confessions of faith?

RSC: In the book I use the word "confession" in two ways. In the first and narrow sense it refers to those public, authoritative, ecclesiastical summaries of the Word adopted by the Reformed churches in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the broader sense, however, it refers to the theology, piety, and practice of the Reformed churches that forms the context for those documents and in light of which they must be read. I wrote the book to try to encourage those who identify with the Reformed faith to see the confessions as the definition of the adjective "Reformed." Too many folk think that the doctrine of predestination is the alpha and omega of Reformed theology. The Reformed churches know nothing of such a definition! The Reformed churches confess much more than divine sovereignty and predestination. They confess a holistic theology, a distinct piety (that is neither pentecostal nor sterile), a churchly, sacramental practice of the faith. So the confessions themselves are essential to being Reformed and to recovering an authentic Reformed identity and life. Confessions are unavoidable. Every Christian has a confession, even if very brief. "No creed but Christ" is still a confession. The church has always confessed her faith whether in the Shema of Deut 6:4 or in 1 Tim 3:16, to name but two places. So the question is whether one will have a confession that reflects the scope of biblical revelation and practice. The original evangelicals were confessing people. Modern evangelicals have experimented with churchless, "creed-less" Christianity for two centuries and it has been a failure. We should take note of Luther, Bucer, Bullinger, and Calvin and of all the great Protestant churches of the Reformation in virtually every place. They were all confessing churches.

GD: What factors under God have led to a widespread recovery of Reformed teaching in the States?

RSC: If you're referring to the 'Young, Restless, and Reformed' movement or the increased interest in divine sovereignty among some segments of evangelicalism, that is a cause for encouragement. The doctrines of grace essential to the historic evangelical faith but they are just an on-ramp to Reformed theology. The most obvious cause for a turn to the doctrines of grace is the vacuous, narcissistic, therapeutic, and moralistic nature of so much modern "evangelical" theology, piety, and practice. The baby-boom generation largely wrecked what they inherited from Carl Henry (and that inheritance was problematic). It is not surprising that the children of those ruins have begun to cast about for an alternative. I hope they don't try to add a doctrine of divine sovereignty to the rickety house of modern evangelicalism.

GD: If time travel were possible, which figure from post-biblical Church history would you most like to meet and what you say to him/her?

RSC: Oh, this is very difficult choice for a historian! I have questions for some many different people. I think I would enjoy talking to Luther more than to Calvin (whom, I fear, I might find a little solemn). I would ask Luther about his view of baptism (did he really teach baptismal regeneration?) and his view of Calvin.

GD: Martin Luther said that when it comes to contending for the faith we should fight for the truth that is most under attack at any given time. Where is the battle raging most fiercely today?

RSC: The most fundamental question of the modern (early and late) period has been the authority and reliability of Scripture. The great question of the pre-modern period was, "What has God said?" The Roman and Protestant communions gave different answers but they they agreed that divine authority is pre-eminent. In the modern period the question became, "Has God said?" Of course that's not a modern question The current attempt to revise the doctrine of justification is probably a manifestation of that problem. It has been in the background for the last two decades but it appears to be re-emerging into the foreground. Related to both of these is the hermeneutical crisis of the last several decades. These were the formal and material issues of the Reformation: sola Scriptura and sola fide so it shouldn't surprise us too much to see that they are the most basic issues we face today.

GD: What is the most helpful theological book that you have read in the last twelve months? It is a must read because?

RSC: This is very difficult to answer. For one thing my interests tend toward history and historical theology. One volume that stands out might be Herman Selderhuis, 'Calvin's Theology of the Psalms' (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007). Everyone should read it because it's a model of how to read texts and how to write about them winsomely.

GD: Care to share your top three songs or pieces of music?

RSC: In no particular order here are three tunes I always turn up.
Green Onions, Booker T and the MGs
I Wanna Be Sedated, Ramones
Gimme Shelter, Rolling Stones

GD: Tell us three things you know about Wales and the Welsh.

RSC: The Welshmen I know (and have known) have
1) a wonderful grasp of the English language
2) a dry sense of humor
3) dislike generalizations about the Welsh

GD: You must be thinking of your colleague at WTS, Hywel Jones, who was Principal of the London Theological Seminary when I studied there many years ago. Do give him my regards. Now, what is the biggest problem facing evangelicalsim today and how should we respond?

RSC: There are three great problems: Christlessness, Wordlessness, and churchlessness. The very fact that there is likely no such thing as "evangelicalism," i.e., virtually no common confession among those who identify themselves as "evangelicals" signals the magnitude of the problem faced by those who identify themselves as evangelicals. They are bound together by a common experience of or quest for the immediate experience of the divine but they are united in and defined by little else. Such could not have been said about the original evangelicals. The original evangelicals were united by their understanding of the gospel, the doctrine of justification and the unique and normative authority of Scripture as God's Word and by their conviction that God has promised to work savingly in the visible, institutional church through Word and sacrament. Modern evangelicals have really been gradually becoming Anabaptist in their approach to theology, piety, and practice since the 1970s. However passionate the Anabaptists were they were not Protestants and they were not evangelicals. The Christian hope is not grounded in immediate experience of the divine presence nor in continuing, extra-biblical revelation, but in the good news of the risen Savior revealed in the inerrant, canonical Word of God and sealed in divinely instituted sacraments and administered in the visible church.

GD: Which blogs do you enjoy reading and why?

RSC: I'm subscribed to more than I should admit. I am enjoying many, including this one. If I had to pick five (with apologies to all the other outstanding blogs):
Martin Downes, Against Heresies
Darryl Hart and John Muether, Old Life Theological Society
The Confessional Outhouse (Zrim, Rick, and Ruberad)
Creed or Chaos (Brannan and Chaos)
Adiaphora

These, among others, come to mind because they are consistently faithful or thoughtful, and thought provoking or all three. I always learn from them.

GD: Well, that just about wraps things up. Thanks for dropping by for this conversation. Bye!